Email marketing campaigns are becoming a more sought after alternative to traditional paper-mail campaigns because they provide a larger audience at a more economical price, overall more cost-effective. Your architecture, engineering, environmental non-profit, landscape architecture, or urban planning company can utilize email marketing to provide newsletters to inform your clients of upcoming events, new projects, publications, news, or services. While there are a variety of email marketing campaigns that can be designed, Global Site Plans highly encourages opt-in email marketing, also referred to as permission marketing. Opt-in email marketing requires the consent of the recipient so that they are anticipating continued communication from your company, making it less likely that your messages will be considered “spam.”

When Global Site Plans designs an email marketing plan we will assist your architecture, engineering, environmental non-profit, landscape architecture, or urban planning company through the following steps:

CHOOSE THE RIGHT EMAIL MARKETING CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Global Site Plans has expertise with ConstantContact and MailChimp. Personally, Global Site Plans utilizes MailChimp because it is highly integrated with social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter which makes letting your followers “follow” your email marketing campaigns so much faster and easier to maintain. And while we recommend our clients using MailChimp, there are a slew of other email marketing software systems out there that can assist in affiliate programs and email behavior campaigns. Let Global Site Plans know what your email marketing campaign aim is and we’ll find the email marketing campaign management system that suits your company.

BUILD YOUR COMPANY LIST

Usually, opt-in email marketing is created from an email list that you have already built during the course of conducting business. It could also include family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances should your company just be starting out. Either way, when your firm sends an email through an opt-in email campaign it is assumed that the consumer, your contact, wants to receive the material that you are sending. This makes the message a solicited one, rather than unsolicited spam. And ideally, the email that is sent to these companies or individuals will be more personal and relevant to the consumer. You can also create email campaigns to certain market segments of your company base, making your messages even further personalized.

The alternative to opt-in email marketing is mass email marketing, which can generate new leads, but done so with emails provided by a list generating agency. These list-generating companies can find email lists relevant to your firms’ desired demographics and target that audience. While opt-in email marketing specifies that the recipient is assuming communication will continue, mass email marketing is unsolicited email. This type of email marketing campaign can cost more to purchase the associated list(s), may generate a negative reputation for your company – as a “spammer,” and may get “junked” more than opened and read. While it’s another option, Global Site Plans always encourage opt-in email marketing campaigns. If you’re looking to generate leads for your sole-proprietorship or company, focus on marketing to those whose attention you already have, while providing relevant email content. You never know who will forward your email marketing campaign, leading to a referral.

SET UP EMAIL AND CONTACT INFORMATION CAPTURE FORMS

It’s simple to add email and contact information capture forms to your company’s website, blog, or social networking site such as Facebook. This allows visitors to give you their contact information, such as email address, name, phone number, and other information that you may seek to further enhance your clients’ experience. Remember, your potential and current clients are trusting you with their information – you should respect their privacy and only ask for the information that will be highly relevant to your intentions, enhancing your clients’ (and potential) experience.

DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO ACCOMPLISH

Before we assist you with launching your first campaign, you should know what it is that you want to accomplish. What is the purpose of your email marketing campaign? Do you want to deepen the quality of relationships, educate them – and – why are you sending emails? Set out clear goals before sending the first email and let Global Site Plans know your aim so that we can assist you in building and shaping messages around those goals.

ADD TRIGGERS TO EMAILS

A trigger allows you to narrow your client’s interests and target future email marketing campaigns toward them. When a potential or current client clicks on a link in one of your email marketing campaigns a trigger automatically releases a message sending him or her information about a similar service or topic based on the original link. Imagine targeting your audience based on their response to your first email marketing campaign.

MONITOR THE EMAIL CAMPAIGNS’ RESULTS

Once a month, we will look at the reporting for the email campaigns that were sent out to see which were the most effective, with the highest rate of opening and click-throughs. Using these metrics, together, Global Site Plans and your company will shape the next email marketing campaign. If email campaigns are not getting a good click-through response then the problem is either the quality of your message or the topic. Testing will occur with the first few email campaigns in order to see which attain the highest response rate.

Overall, email marketing campaigns are an effective way to increase and deepen the relationships with potential and current clients. It’s also an effective means to targeted communication and continued brand recognition.